The drivetrain for a vehicle may include a combustion engine or an electric motor that provides torque through a transmission to a driveshaft. The driveshaft transmits the torque to the wheels of the vehicle. The transmission and driveshaft are separate components that are generally separately manufactured and assembled together with fasteners on the final assembly line. During final assembly, the threaded fasteners, such as bolts, are separately assembled and secured to the transmission flange and the driveshaft flange. This requires assemblers on the final assembly line to handle the bolts that are hand started to secure the bolts. Assembling the flanges together with bolts is labor intensive and time consuming for assembly workers.
The transmission and driveshaft are secured together by connecting flanges of both parts with threaded fasteners that may be coated with a locking coating, such as Locktite® a trademark of Electrosteel USA LLC, that resists loosening of the connection caused by vibrations during operation of the vehicle. The locking coating is applied to the threads of the threaded fastener. During the process of securing the transmission flange and the driveshaft flange together, particles of the locking coating can become dislodged and trapped between mating flat surfaces of the transmission flange and the driveshaft flange. The close tolerances are specified for connecting the transmission flange to the driveshaft flange. Particles from the locking coating may become lodged between the flanges causing the flanges not to be flush with one another. If the transmission flange and the driveshaft flange are not flush with each other, the assembly will be out of specification and potentially may be imbalanced and resulting in unwanted noise, vibration and harshness issues.
This disclosure is directed to addressing the above problems and other problems as summarized below.